Actor joins Zooey Deschanel and Alan Cumming

Oscar winner Richard Dreyfuss isn't off to see the wizard. He is the wizard.

The veteran actor has signed on to star in Sci Fi Channel's "Tin Man," a reimagining of L.Frank Baum's tale. He joins Zooey Deschanel and Alan Cumming in the six-hour miniseries.

Dreyfuss will portray the powerful wizard known as the Mystic Man in The Outer Zone (the O.Z.), a fantastical realm that is oppressed by dark magic.

When the young woman DG (Deschanel) is snatched up and thrust into the O.Z., she joins forces with the half-brained man Glitch (Cumming), the wolverine-like Raw who seeks courage and the emotionally scarred, heroic Cain, who was once part of the police force known as Tin Men. They journey along the Old Road to seek the help of the Mystic Man, who holds the key to revealing her destiny, which is strangely tied to the wicked Azkeadellia. During the final showdown, DG's life and the future of O.Z. itself hang in the balance.

Production on this psychedelic and twisted update will begin in April in Vancouver. Sci Fi is shooting for a December premiere.

Dreyfuss, 59, is a modern-day screen legend whose credits include "American Graffiti," "Jaws," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," "The Goodbye Girl" (for which he won a best actor Oscar, "Down and Out in Beverly Hills," "The American President," "Mr. Holland's Opus" "Krippendorf's Tribe" and the recent "Poseidon."

His next film, "Suburban Girl," starring Sarah Michelle Gellar and Alec Baldwin, will be released in May.